This is the first report of a three stage project examining the gaming machine playing behaviour of certain Sydney registered club members of different social, demographic, cultural and linguistic backgrounds. This initial report provides the background to subsequent survey and interview work. From secondary research, it identifies the socio-demographic features of adult resident populations in Sydney local areas that have high concentrations of registered clubs and high levels of gaming machine expenditures per capita. The other reports from this project are Poker Machine Playing and Problem Gambling Amongst Members of Sydney’s Registered Clubs and Evaluating the Current and Future Adequacy of Services for Problem Gamblers in Sydney.